MUSIC

Social media numbers are important…. ish. Let me tell you about an unfortunate experiment I tried with a former group I was with. I heard many years ago (back in 2011-ish?) that you could run facebook ads globally, legally, and gain 1000’s of followers for pennies. They were ads, right? So why did this end up backfiring, and what was THE MOST VALUABLE lesson I’ve ever learned from this one little experiment?

Long story short, we only spent a few hundred dollars over the course of some months at about $5 a day running ads globally for our band. This resulted in going from about 2000 genuine likes, to about 10,000+ of what we thought were genuine likes, but ended up shooting us in the foot, big time. The result of this was that we had 8000 “fans” that could care less what we were up to, and as far as the Facebook algorithm went, we watered down our engagement to the point where whatever we posted generally got zero traction unless we paid more money to advertise to the fake fans who never saw our posts unless we advertised…. it began a vicious cycle and even to this day we Continue reading →

Here is a list of all the Portland (and somewhat surrounding areas) that seem to have gigs on a regular enough basis to warrant a conversation with the research project, but if you’re in a band and you’re trying to get in touch with people, this may be really helpful:

Ari Herstand has become a beacon of hope for the new music industry, consistently offering top notch advice based on his experiences as a DIY artist in a way that’s meant to help others, something I hope to do as well, so immediately his site Ari’s Take resonated with me. Learning about the book he wrote lead me to purchase it, and well…. it blew me away. After reading so many books on music business, (which I’ll list recommended ones at the end of this blog) I started trying to sort out which ideas were even still relevant (some of the books were dated), and then how to apply them to this day and age considering the music industry is completely different than it was 20 years ago, shoot even 10 years ago it’s flipped on it’s head, and in the last 5 it’s made even MORE drastic changes.

Today I was listening to the audiobook of Ari Herstand’s book How To Make It in the New Music Business and I almost jumped out of my chair at a quote he had from Ben Folds. Actually… no I did jump out of my chair, except I was driving and the chair had a steering wheel in front of me and…. well anyways here’s the quote:

Self-promotion. If you don’t want anything to do with it, stay in your f*&king basement.- @BenFolds

Opening thought: Maybe it’s time for someone to redefine art. Bridge the gap between art, product, and progress, as a society.

Art redefined? Now there’s an interesting thought. What is it to create art? Recently I’ve realized myself that art… is…. progress (I could, and I likely will, get into a whole blog about that by itself, but for now I’ll keep it short). It is the very definition of progress, in my eyes. Realizing this, I found it to be the redefinition I’ve been looking for. But how do I make a living off of this? What am I doing wrong?! Why haven’t I gotten it yet? Well… what I believe to be part of the answer, was elusive, but the simplicity was astounding. I’m not treating it like a business, if I want to make money, treating it like a business is how it’s done. Period. End of story (except not). Now that I realized that simple truth, how on earth do I motivate to do all the stuff that has nothing directly to do with the stuff I love?!

I start thinking to myself “Well, all I love doing is making music and performing music, I don’t want to learn the business stuff, I don’t want to do any of the other stuff, just music and perform”. And the more I learned about that, the more I realized I couldn’t be any more wrong in by not wanting to learn about business, but WHY was I reluctant? Because I would feel like a sellout? Because the business side is a drag? Because the that side does nothing for my creative side? Will I be seen as not a true artist? AHHH! (Head explodes!) Then, Randall happened. In two sentences he blew my mind. Continue reading →

Well, we’ve all been at this point. I’m currently here, upon the time of writing this. It’s got me thinking about how Sisyphean the entertainment entire industry is. Constantly feeling like this conversation is happening, over and over:

“I love performing! I just want to play live as much as possible, I love to entertain people”

or

“I want to be creative, and I want my art to be heard/seen/enjoyed around the world!”

or

“I want to fund my life with my craft”

To which, life seems to repeatedly say “Oh yeah? Fuck you. Go back where you came from, and give up. Sell your guitar on ebay, and go do something ‘useful’ in society.”

Part 1 might have inspired some despair, but after much research and thought into the whole matter, and more discussion with folks on the radio side of things, I’ve come up with a list of ideas to help you out, at least hopefully get a starting point, in your quest for radio airplay.

While mainstream radio will be the biggest challenge, kind of like the end boss in a way, these are other ways to get your songs heard en masse, and to help get that name recognition I spoke of in Part 1.